


Riptide

by SunshineReiji



Category: Uta no Prince-sama
Genre: Established Relationship, Happy Birthday Reiji Kotobuki, M/M, birthday fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-26 03:05:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19759303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunshineReiji/pseuds/SunshineReiji
Summary: Perhaps it was only Reiji's mind, erhaps it was reality, but once a year, when the border between the living and the dead was blurred enough, he got the visit of an old friend, an old love.





	Riptide

Four in the morning was a magical hour.

That was at least what Reiji Kotobuki had always thought. There was something in this hour, a change in the world. It was the hour in which the night started to morph into day, the hour when the roosters started singing, the hour during which the stars in the sky died, disappeared into the sun’s light, leaving emptiness above everyone’s head. It was an empty hour, an hour of uncertainty, an hour to wake up to, to go to sleep.  
Someone once had called it "the hour of the thirty-year-olds".

No one felt good at four in the morning.  
Reiji was rarely asleep at four in the morning.  
He usually woke up at around three in the morning. There was a superstition, that claimed that if one woke up between three and four in the morning, then that’s because someone was watching them. A terrifying perspective that, for those who delved deeper into the spiritual arts, went together with the knowledge that at 03:33 in the morning, the border between the world of the dead and the world of the living weakens and spirits can cross it.  
It never scared Reiji though, because he hoped there would be one ghost in particular watching him.

Today was a special four in the morning.  
Reiji did not have the day off, that was why he had woken up earlier. He was already dressed and packed, ready to leave.  
He glanced at his phone again, which displayed the following :

04 : 12  
Saturday 13th July

Happy Birthday Rei-chan !

He sighed, lightly stroking the screen with his thumb.  
He wasn’t a real celebrator when it came to his birthday. To him, it was a day like any other. He wasn’t really fond of the perspective of gaining yet another year. He hated feeling old and being reminded of his age. A birthday did exactly that.

However, a birthday was a good excuse to visit an old friend.

So Reiji pocketed his phone and left as quietly as possible, only grabbing a little paper bag from the kitchen. He then put his things in the trunk of his car and left, driving through the night.  
It was exciting, to have a ride in such an ungodly hour. It woke the brunet up, made him more alert. He enjoyed driving like this.  
He wasn’t the only one awake at four in the morning. A few cars were already driving in the city. Reiji briefly wondered if those people were just like him, driving to visit an old friend on their own birthday.  
Probably. Maybe not in this city, but somewhere in the world, there must be one person in the same situation as him.  
After all, Reiji Kotobuki was nothing exceptional.

He drove to the beach. Aine’s beach. Aine’s ocean. He had never been able to call it otherwise. Come to think of it, Reiji didn’t even know the real name of the place. It had always been Aine’s beach. He knew the way. That was enough.  
The parking lots were free, so he had plenty of choices. He found one near his perfect spot and took the paper bag with him.

He quickly went the closest he could to the ocean and seated himself on the sand, never bothered that it’d get everywhere. He enjoyed the feeling of the sand. It was soft, still cold at this hour. The ocean was calm today, the low tide would come at around seven in the morning.  
He had time.  
Once comfortably seated, Reiji took out two doughnuts from the paper bag and nicely put them onto it, like a little improvised picnic on the beach.  
And then he waited.

It was believed that, at four in the morning, ghosts and other weak spirits left this world, disappeared so the living could leave peacefully during the day.  
But Aine was never really one to obey the rules.

Oh, he wasn’t a delinquent. He just liked to get things done his own way. That had been one of his main qualities, back then. He had his style, that little something that made people say "This is Aine Kisaragi’s work !". 

So, on the 13th July, each year since he was sixteen years old, Reiji came here and waited.  
Waited for Aine to do things hos own way again.

A soft breeze rustled his hair, lifted the bag a bit, disturbed the soft sand beneath him. The brunet smiled at the horizon, bringing his knees closer to his chest, stamping his feet a little.  
He felt a presence next to him and his smile grew bigger. He didn’t look at the entity immediately, enjoying the mere sensation of having the person by his side again.

"Happy birthday Reiji." rose a soft voice on his right.

Reiji finally looked at him and his smile grew to an impossible size, wrinkling his skin.

"Thank you Aine." he answered. 

A small moment of mad joy shared between them, between four and five in the morning, during two best friends could enjoy their birthday doughnut together. A riptide in the course of life and death. A bit of true happiness in Reiji’s life.  
Just for that moment, Reiji kept on looking forward to his birthday.

Even though Reiji wanted more, he had learnt not to be greedy. He wanted to feel Aine closer to him, to be able to hug him, kiss him, talk to him longer.  
But being with him was enough.  
Having him here, smiling, was enough.

Perhaps it was just Reiji’s mind, perhaps it was reality.  
He didn’t care.  
The low tide was still hours away.

**Author's Note:**

> This work was heavily inspired by the song 'Czarny blues o czwartej nad ranem' by Stare Dobre Małżeństwo and the poem 'Czwarta nad ranem' by Wisława Szymborska. Feel free to listen to the song, just for the melody ^.^  
> Also I am hella superstitious about those things, so sorry if I scared some people but it fit so well~
> 
> I hope you enjoyed ! It is short, but it's just the description of a little moment between Reiji and Aine, nothing much ^.^


End file.
